MIT License and/or W3C CLA and FSA

[elf-pavlik]

Extracting conversation from #323 (review)

License

The group will use the MIT license for all its work items.

@elf-pavlik:
I looked at some other CG drafts and final reports and they mostly use

• W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA) Deed
• W3C Community Final Specification Agreement (FSA) Deed

@csarven
Indeed to publish a W3C "Community Group Report" ( https://www.w3.org/community/about/process/ ). Works under solid/ use the MIT license, including the publications that are under https://solidproject.org/TR/ , and so far they have not been CG Reports. As I understand it, a CG Report document is not required in order to transition to a WG deliverable. I think the Solid CG can still publish CG Reports by simply creating snapshots of particular versions.
If we have consensus on publishing CG Reports in addition to versioned publications, we should distinguish them in the charter (and later in the contributing guide), and thereby clarifying the License and IPR.

@woutermont
Re the license: given that the only formal requirement seems to be that final reports of the CG fall under a W3C FSA license, is there any other advantage/incentive to switch all current MIT-licensed contributions to the W3C CLA?

@pchampin
if the goal is to publish a final report under W3C FSA, W3C CLA has the advantage of ensuring a smooth transition (especially about patents). AFAIK, there is no commitment regarding patents in the MIT license, so people may block the publication under W3C FSA by saying "wait a minute, I never signed up for that!".

@elf-pavlik
Maybe we could request guidance from someone at https://www.w3.org/staff/legal/ ?

@TallTed
+1

[rigow]

Pierre-Antoine asked me to comment:

The current charter says: "The group will use the MIT license for all its work items."

Looks like there was a decision made. As long as this decision is not revised, it makes no sense to discuss any further. This decision does not integrate well into the CG system IMHO.

Just for your information:
CLA and FSA have a meaning within a given and working system and legal framework. This framework was established after long discussions within the PSIG. The licenses have certain semantics. The MIT license has only few semantics that distinguishes it from the public domain: Do not use the name of MIT and MIT is not liable. Which doesn't look very meaningful in our context here, especially with respect to patent, trademark and copyright protection. If you want a tutorial on the meaning of all those licenses, we can organize a call once I'm back from vacation.

In preparation, it may be a better course of action to ask what the group wants and what the group does not want, a kind of real requirements discussion. I can then help to answer questions whether those requirements fit within the CLA and the FSA (my guess by a probability of 90% is that they do)

[csarven]

@rigow , thank you. To be clear, the proposed charter is using MIT license until we better understand the direction we'd like to take.

Quick background: We've been using the MIT license historically since this GitHub solid organisation originally used it for software, and later for early specification development predating the W3C Solid CG. We kept at it through the lifetime of the CG but now we're reviewing the material pertaining to the CG going forward. We also had an understanding that specifications are also code - although the notions was not codified in a document.

Do I understand correctly that CLA can cover all kinds of "Contributions to the Specifications" (as per https://www.w3.org/community/about/process/cla/ ), including software, e.g., test suite, or is that something separate, along the lines of https://www.w3.org/copyright/test-suite-license-2023/ or https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2008/03-bsd-license.html ?

To be clear (to everyone), any changes to the license would be applied to CG's work items, and not all repositories under the GitHub solid organisation.

If we do decide to use CLA/FSA in our specifications, do you have any recommendations / best practise to changing the current licensing from MIT to CLA/FSA? Would it suffice to PR the license change, wait for a reasonable amount of time, and go ahead with it if no objections?

My understanding is that only using W3C CLA/FLA (and any other W3C license for software) in the W3C Solid CG would suffice for our needs. Using MIT does not overly tie us to W3C in a way but I'm not sure if there are significant advantages to that in practise. After all, patent concerns with the MIT license aside, it is highly unlikely that our Web specifications would go through another standards body than the W3C. There may potentially be Internet specifications that can go to IETF or elsewhere - so then would this mean that when the CG accepts a "work item", the intention is to use W3C licenses and to potentially have them transition to a W3C REC under a WG? What if we later find out that something should've been passed on to IETF, would CLA/FLA pose any problems?

@timbl , ping!

[timbl]

Thanks for the person who brought this to my attention -- I was/am out of office. For me the MIT licence has been what we have insisted for all open source code for decades. The (mostly python) SWAP project, including cwm, in 2001 used MIT licence, and for me there is a continuum of code around sem web and linked data. Some of that code was translated (using pyjs) into Javascript to form the core or rdflib.js which is the core of lost of browser side stuff including webapps and SolidOS. I would like anything in the Solid ecosystem I am ever going to touch to be MIT licensed so I can mix it in. Yes, if specs have example code in them that must be MIT licensed too. This whole mass of code over the ages which anyone can dip into when they want to create another part of it has been really valuable.

It was important, by the way, when Inrupt Inc was started in this space -- and I imagine other companies -- that all the code around it was MIT licenced and so usable by commercial or non-commercial entities with impunity.

Please keep the Community Group using the MIT licence.

[elf-pavlik]

Thank you @rigow, Solid CG holds weekly meetings every Wednesday at 14:00 UTC. Would you see it possible to join one of those meetings for 30 min (or even a full hour) to help us understand nuances around licensing of:

• specifications
  • code snippets included in examples
• test suites
• sample implementations

If that is possible we could try to plan this meeting at least a week or two ahead, publish the agenda and invite everyone with questions (especially questions not answered in this issue) to join.

[elf-pavlik]

Just to keep track of other inputs

• @CxRes pointed out https://www.w3.org/copyright/software-license-2023/ (to me it looks very similar to MIT)
• One of the Solid CG drafts received this PR Ngi0 reuse data-interoperability-panel#313 - some of my contributions were part of a project with NLnet and https://reuse.software/ is also involved with NGI0 the PR adds to the top of most files some metadata with copyright to the draft editors and relevant license.

[csarven]

To be clear, an ideal or preferred license for code in the Solid ecosystem is a separate discussion. This discussion focuses on setting a good path to help the mature Solid CG's Work Items advance to a WG.

CG's work items do not currently include software besides the test suite software to aid implementers in prototyping. Other types of software, including reference implementations, may become work items in the future. Implementations are separate works and aren't under the CG's authority. The CG cannot dictate the software license for implementations, just like a WG can't.

[woutermont]

To distinguish between different types of work items, and also touch on the case of test suites, I suggest we could update the license section to the following.

---

The group will use W3C copyright licenses for all its work items except any software code artifacts, for which the group will use the MIT license. Concretely, this means that the group will use:

• the W3C Contributor License Agreement (CLA) for all its draft specifications;
• the W3C Final Specification Agreement (FSA) for all its final specifications;
• the W3C Document License for all its other public documents;
• a dual license combining the W3C Test Suite License with a 3-clause BSD license for all its authoritative test suites; and
• the MIT license for all its other software artifacts.

In particular, the group will NOT use the W3C Software License.

[elf-pavlik]

@timbl please note @csarven's comment above

To be clear, an ideal or preferred license for code in the Solid ecosystem is a separate discussion. This discussion focuses on setting a good path to help the mature Solid CG's Work Items advance to a WG.

There is a lot of software being developed by the participants (individuals and organizations) of Solid CG. All the code I write is open source and under the MIT license, but the Solid CG charter doesn't apply to any of that code. It is the same with the projects you mentioned, neither SolidOS nor rdflib.js are direct work items of Solid CG.

@woutermont I think we could add just one more sentence to what you are proposing:

The group strongly encourages its participants to use MIT license for all their implementations conforming to Solid specifications

Keeping in mind that each participant will make their final choice, similar to how mentioned Inrupt, which generously shares some code under MIT license, also chooses to keep other code proprietary (e.g. Enterprise Solid Server)

[CxRes]

The group strongly encourages its participants to use MIT license for all their implementations conforming to Solid specifications

@elf-pavlik This specificity to MIT is not a good idea. I for example prefer MPL 2.0 and Apache 2.0 as these as written by legal experts and have patent specific clauses. Others may have a different preference. I would be OK with "OSI Approved" licences or similar.

My query was indeed for software generated as part of CG work items only, keeping in mind consistency with wider W3C practices. I think W3C Software License over MIT is the right choice here, but it is not a strong preference.

[oolivo]

Hello all,

I would like to both throw in my opinion and request that we postpone this decision on the license and treat it separately from the Charter renewal discussions.

As @csarven has noted, we have been using the MIT License for everything since the beginning of the SolidProject, and it has not prevented or limited us from doing anything. Regardless of whether the W3C License is or is not more appropriate and brings us to parity with other groups, every individual and commercial entity in the ecosystem has made their contributions under the assumption that everything they have been working on is MIT licensed.

A license change after the fact is not something that should be taken lightly as it requires both legal and risk reviews. In this case, there are 5+ years worth of contributions, artifacts, derivative works, etc. that will need to be reviewed and assessed. We’re wading into potentially complex legal territory here.

To reference the quote from @pjchampin, "wait a minute, I never signed up for that!" We did sign up for the MIT license and many folks had legal reviews and risk assessments done day one. And everyone’s decisions up until this point have been based on that assumption. We did not sign up for the W3C license (yet) and if we’re changing those assumptions it’s going to involve significant legal review, risk review, content review, and due diligence.

If we’re not gaining anything significant by making the switch aside from parity, then I would recommend we avoid it altogether as it will be both time consuming and monetarily expensive to do properly. But if the group feels this is the right direction, then I would again request we decouple this from the Charter discussions and treat it as a standalone issue. I’d also request we postpone a decision here until everyone has had sufficient time to perform their legal review, risk review and due diligence so that we can make more informed decisions.

I say this as a representative of Inrupt inc. but I suspect many of the organizations involved in the Solid Project as well as individual contributors will have similar concerns with respect to the legal implications and change in the contract regarding their contributions.

Thanks.

[CxRes]

@oolivo I do not want to contest or argue the complexity of issues involved. I think there is consensus with decoupling the license from the new CG charter to be updated this month.

Nevertheless, my question to you is: wouldn't the use of a new license (W3C licenses) apply only to new publications/works (including new updates to work done under MIT License, which MIT allows) and all the prior work would continue to remain licensed under MIT? So how will it affect anyone who contributed to the CG under MIT license as the change would not at all be retrospective? Contributers may decide if they wish to make new contributions or not going forward based on the new licenses (at most contributor may be asked to resign up). I am concerned here particularly as I intend to bring up new work items to the CG and want this issue to be addressed definitively before I do so!

[woutermont]

Thanks @oolivo for so clearly and transparently representing Inrupts opinion on this matter 🙏

Note though, that your actual request ("that we postpone this decision on the license and treat it separately from the Charter renewal discussions") was already what we approved in last week's CG meeting: we will conclude the discussion on the charter next Tuesday (the 8th), with the option to discuss the license further until the end of August and then update the charter to our conclusion.

Regarding the license itself, it is also important to distinguish between the contributions to the CG work items (which, apart from the test suite and some example snippets in the technical reports do not include code), and other contributions within the ecosystem as a whole. This discussion only impacts the former; anything published (open source or not) by an organisation other than the CG is a matter for that organisation only.